


Steven & Greg Bury a Body - The Perfect Father & Son Bonding Activity

by DepressedCarrot



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Anxiety, Car Accidents, Character Death, Crimes & Criminals, Dark, Dark Comedy, Death, Gen, Guilt, I'm Going to Hell, Murder, Nervousness, shitpost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-15 17:54:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28942536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DepressedCarrot/pseuds/DepressedCarrot
Summary: Steven hits someone or something with his car.He calls upon his dad to help him fix this mess. Sometimes...bad people shouldn't be healed.
Relationships: Connie Maheswaran & Doug Maheswaran, Greg Universe & Steven Universe
Comments: 22
Kudos: 44





	1. Steven & Greg Bury a Body

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TranscendentalSpaceGem](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TranscendentalSpaceGem/gifts), [E350tb](https://archiveofourown.org/users/E350tb/gifts), [blissfall](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blissfall/gifts).



> Dedicating this dark comedy to my buds, Star & E. You guys rock. Also dedicating this to blissfall because you inspire me to kill more characters - help lmao. 
> 
> Here, have a high-quality shitpost.

Steven stood with his knuckles against his teeth, chattering at the sight before him. He thought that he had hit a deer - which admittedly, may have been a lot worse. He sweated nervously as he internally queried how he was going to get himself out of the mess that he had found himself in. 

Quite easily, actually - but did he  _ really _ want that? 

Did bad people deserve to have access to his healing abilities? Was there something morally incorrect about not healing them regardless of who they were as a person? 

Steven wasn’t sure. He had never  _ murdered _ anyone before. 

His hand shook as he thought of a way out of this mess, one that didn’t include having to heal them and turn them pink. Then everyone would know. Everyone would know that he was the one who had hit  _ Marty  _ with his car! 

He didn’t mean to! What sort of weirdo goes out late at night and walks in the middle of the road? It wasn’t Steven’s fault that for some unknown reason Marty was going against traffic safety in the dark of night. All Steven wanted to do was drive to a point that overlooked Beach City so that he could focus on the stars to clear his mind.

That was very much not the case anymore. Now he had something else to contend with. Something that he couldn’t quite comprehend. His mind flooded with all kinds of harrowing thoughts. 

He had to get help! He had to find someone who wouldn’t judge him for his errors and someone who may have been able to help Marty medically. In a way that perhaps wouldn’t have turned him pink. That would have been too obvious and Marty would have totally woken up and blamed Steven anyway. 

It was a bad idea. 

What was Marty even doing in Beach City anyway? 

Steven pulled out his phone and immediately went to Greg on his contact list because yes, his dad was  _ totally  _ the correct person to call. There couldn’t have possibly been anyone else that would have been more skilled in this. Who could he call that would have experience in the disposal of...humans? 

He did often wonder about Pearl - but now wasn’t the time. 

“Dad! I’ve done something...bad!” Steven ran his fingers through his hair as he looked around, hoping that nobody would drive past and notice the body in the headlights of his car. 

“What’s up, Stchuball? It’s pretty late, is everything okay?” 

“No! It’s not okay! I need to come and see you!” Steven didn’t know what else to say. How else was he going to have gotten to a point where he could admit his mistake over the phone? Perhaps it was a bad idea to have called Greg right after the incident…

He was going to have to destroy his phone...and his dad’s phone...and the cellular towers that the signals bounced off of...and the files in which the signals were stored. He could probably get Peridot to do something about that, maybe he should have called her - he very much imagined that she wouldn’t have minded such a task. 

“Well, okay. I’m in the van outside the car wash. I can always drive over if-”

“No! I’m coming to you! I’ll be there soon!” Steven sweated profusely as he ended the call. He didn’t have any time to spend talking to his dad about anything other than the necessary things. 

Steven slowly placed his phone into his pocket and gulped, the body still in the middle of the road, illuminated by his headlights. Motionless. Dead. 

Overhead, rain began to pour down from the sky causing Steven to grumble at the inconvenience. Of course it had to rain! It always rained whenever someone died! Well, whenever a teenage boy accidentally hit his father’s old tour manager with a car.  _ Yeah...something like that. _

Steven knew that now was his time to transport the body and get it out of the middle of the road. He needed to take Marty over to his father so that they could figure out a plan of what they needed to do to cover this up. It would have been a disaster if anyone were to have found out what Steven had done. 

It had been an accident! It wasn’t as if he had done it on purpose!

Although, it could have been worse. Out of all the people in the world - at least it was Marty. 

Steven tried to prevent the tears in his eyes as he unlocked the trunk before walking over to face the body once more. He stared down at Marty who was nothing more than a shell of a man, before and after death. Steven did the honours in picking him up underneath the arms and dragging his body in the trunk of his car. 

He threw him into the back of the car before slamming the trunk down and taking a deep breath. It was time to go to Greg. 

He hopped into the car and gripped onto the steering wheel, turning on the radio and listening to some repetitive pop song. His eye twitched as he drove, trying his hardest to forget he had a dead body in the back of his car. This was...new. 

The Dondai practically screeched as Steven parked the car in the driveway of the car wash, making sure to reverse so that the trunk was facing the established business. He didn’t want the surrounding residents to know what he was up to. His crimes needed to stay hidden. 

It was only moments later that Steven was stood beside his father, staring at the closed trunk. Steven lifted it open as Greg’s eyes-widened at the sight. 

“Holy smokes! I-is that Marty?!” Greg gasped, clenching his fists - unsure how this situation had come about. 

“I-I didn’t mean to, Dad! It was an accident.” Steven stressed, gripping onto his father’s shirt as his eyes welled. 

“You have to heal him, Steven! Why didn’t you heal him?” Greg panicked, for any other father this would have been a sure concern. However, Steven’s shenanigans always continued regardless of how hard he tried as a parent. This was to have been expected at some point. 

Steven had finally cracked. 

Steven let go of his father and stared down at the floor, the guilt inside of him bubbling. Well, it was either guilt or the milkshake that he had slurped just a couple of hours ago. 

“I mean...it’s  _ Marty. _ ” Steven chewed his bottom lip. 

“Yes, I can see that.” 

“He’s a bad person, dad.” 

“Steven! That’s…” Greg thought about it for a moment. Would the world be better off without Marty? Greg was probably a bad person to ask, but surprisingly, the moral decision was one that he could have made quite easily when his son was in the same headspace. “...You’re right.” 

“What if I use up all my healing powers on Marty and he comes back and does something bad? Wouldn't that make us bad people? I don't want to be bad people!” Steven furrowed his eyebrows as he pointed towards the trunk. He had always been the one to give people second chances, but Marty had plenty of chances in the past - none of which had ever proved his worth. 

“ _ Use up _ your healing powers? That’s not how it works, even I know that.” Greg squinted at his son’s excuses. 

“I know that’s not how it works, Dad. I’m just trying to justify a horrible decision!” Steven clenched his fists either side of him as he looked over at his father, desperation in his eyes. 

“Right.” Greg nodded. His son was smart. 

The father-son duo stood together overlooking the body. What were they going to do? They had to hide it somewhere nobody would ever be able to find it. Steven internally debated whether or not Rose’s room could have been an option...but the smell would have gotten to everyone in the temple eventually. 

Although, Amethyst’s room probably smelled pretty bad too and nobody questioned that…

It was too risky! What if the Gems found out? They wouldn’t have been able to look at him the same ever again. It would have been a disaster. 

“Do you have any shovels in your storage unit?” Steven clapped his hands together, wanting to throw his plan into action. There was no point in waiting around - this had to be done  _ now _ . 

Greg was a little shocked to hear these solutions to his son’s problems fall from his mouth, but it certainly felt like there was nothing more than desperation that couldn’t have been matched. This was something that needed to be done, not something that he wanted to do. It was survival of the fittest and Steven wanted first place. 

“Steven...you want to bury him?” 

“We have to hide the body. It’s the only way.” Steven swallowed hard on his words, regretting them coming out of his mouth. 

“I hate to say it, but I think you might be right.” 

Steven thought for a moment, staring down at the floor so that he didn’t have to look at the body any longer. Guilt spreading through him like a disease. 

“We could do a proper burial! With flowers, yeah! Yeah...that would be nice.” Steven wasn’t sure if Marty deserved flowers. He wasn’t sure if he deserved death either, but that had happened far too soon...or maybe not soon enough? 

“Oh, Steven…” Greg gently touched Steven’s back as a way to calm his son down, noticing that his breathing had increased in pace. 

It was time to find shovels. Something that they could use to bury Marty in the ground so that they could feed him to the worms. At least it would have been good for the environment. Maybe. Steven didn’t know much about science. He knew some things about worms though. 

Greg wanted to drive to the storage unit, but Steven was insistent that he was the one in the driver’s seat of the Dondai. He had gotten used to driving with a dead body in the trunk of his car, so why not do it again? 

This time, he didn’t listen to any music. Greg and Steven sat in silence. 

When they got the to the storage unit, Greg mooched around for the shovels that he owned - most of them being snow shovels. Although, he did have the odd shovel from...he didn’t know what. 

Greg threw it into the back of the Dondai and they continued on their journey, to somewhere they would never be spotted. The rain still pouring down on them and the wipers on the Dondai going at full speed. 

Driving up into the hills, what was once a nice place to go was about to become the place where Steven had spent time with his father hiding a dead body. This was not the father/son bonding time that he had expected. At this point, something more traditional like fishing sounded better. 

The Dondai left tyre tracks in the dirt as it struggled to make it through the wet grass onto what felt like forbidden lands. It was hard to navigate through the dark, the headlights leading the way - the only thing that could be seen in front of them was rain and grass. 

Suddenly, the Dondai came to a halt. It was time. 

Steven and Greg both nervously clambered out of the car. It was incredibly dark outside, but leaving the headlights of the Dondai on was the only illumination that they would receive. There were no words shared between the two of them as they got to work, slaving away at digging a hole that would eventually have been six-foot deep - or at least as close as they could get to that height. 

It wasn’t going to happen. There was no way that they would have been able to dig a hole big enough in the rain before the sun came up. It would have been impossible. 

Although, both Steven and Greg tried their hardest to make the most out of a bad situation, digging as much as they could throughout the night. They hadn’t even dug very far before they found themselves at a stopping point, covered in mud, sweat and drowning in the downpour. 

The hole wasn’t big - but big enough for a body. At least, they hoped so anyway. 

They both made their way around to the back of the car, popping open the trunk and staring inside at the motionless body. Greg held tightly onto the shovel, his hands now calloused and sore. Steven gritted his teeth together at the sight, his varsity jacket patchy with mud and completely soaked through. 

There in the trunk was Marty...

“It’s going to be okay, Steven.” Greg assured, although he wasn’t quite sure if the words he was speaking were the truth. They had been in near silence the entire night, digging away as if their life depended on it. 

“I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean to hurt anyone.” Steven’s bottom lip trembled at the thought, causing him to wrap his arms around his father despite the uncomfortableness of their wet clothing sticking to one another. 

“We’re going to get through this and everything will be f-f-FINE!” Greg suddenly yelped, pushing Steven off him and arming himself with the shovel as the body inside of the back of the trunk sat up. 

Steven sprung backwards, manifesting his shield in defence at the dead body that wasn’t... _ dead _ ? 

Marty brought his hand to his forehead and groaned loudly, he had been knocked out cold by the impact of Steven’s car. Perhaps...Steven should have checked for a pulse. Gems didn’t have pulses - he didn’t usually have to worry about anything like that when healing. 

Oh boy…

“S-Star Child? Star Child Junior?” Marty blinked slowly as he turned to see Steven dressed in mud holding up a floating pink dinner plate and Greg holding a shovel. 

“Marty?! You’re  _ alive _ !?!” Greg gasped, dropping the shovel upon hearing that his old music manager wasn’t dead - or a zombie for that matter. 

“Alive? I’m always kickin’, Greg. What sort of freaky party did you drag me into this time? What’s with the kid?” Marty couldn’t quite figure out what had happened as he noticed he was sitting in the trunk of a small car. 

“Marty! I-I’m so sorry. We thought you were dead!” Steven gasped, holding out his hand so that if Marty wanted to get out of the trunk he could. Steven hoped he would have done just that because frankly, he didn’t want to travel anywhere ever again with someone in the trunk. Dead or alive. 

“Dead? This isn’t part of your weird alien sex cult again, is it, Greg?” Marty immediately furrowed his eyebrows at the thought. He didn’t bother to take Steven’s hand, attempting to clamber out of the truck himself. 

“Sex cu- Marty! No! That’s not...nevermind.” Greg pressed his palm to his forehead as he flushed red, Steven glancing over at him with a slight look of disgust. 

Marty attempted to scramble out of the back of the trunk, refusing to accept any help as he rolled out of the back of the car and immediately hit the floor. He should have probably seen a doctor. 

“Well, I’m glad that you’re not dead!” Steven nervously scratched the top of his head, the rain slowly stopping above them. Of course, it had to stop now. 

At least if Marty wasn’t dead, it would have been a lot less trauma to have to deal with in the morning. 

“I don’t know what I’m tripping on right now, Star Child - but your kid has some big-brained ideas. Me? Dead? He’s just as coo-coo as you, Greg!” Marty laughed as he made his way to his feet like a newborn animal. 

“What did you say about my son?” Greg suddenly became defensive over the words that Marty was speaking. There was no way that anyone was going to have spoken about Steven like that. Not if Greg was around to hear it. 

“This kid isn’t like you, Star Child. At least this kid’s dreams seem viable rather than chasing after big women and floaty space rocks.” 

“Hey, Marty...we don’t use the term  _ rocks _ . It’s offensive.” Steven’s expression dropped into one of sheer disappointment. 

Marty shrugged as he noticed the expressions of the Universe men change dramatically. He had mentioned something that had hit rather close to home and with their emotions already littered everywhere - it was hard for them not to react. 

Marty had been a plague on Greg’s existence since the moment that he showed up in his life. It wasn’t even as if he was a good father to the likes of Sour Cream. His name was  _ Farty Marty _ \- nothing about that shouted _ kind and caring soul _ . 

Perhaps, it was time for him to go. 

“Hey, Steven?” Greg asked at the side of his mouth, keeping his eyes locked on Marty as he picked up the shovel. 

“Yeah?”

“It would be kind of a shame to waste that hole we dug, right?” 

Steven kept his eyes on Marty in the darkness. He wasn’t going anywhere. 

“We  _ dig _ put in a  _ hole _ lot of effort…” Steven chuckled slightly, realising his dad’s master plan. 

Greg laughed at his son’s puns. He was so proud of him and frankly...Marty could go to hell. 

Without a moment’s notice, Greg raised the shovel above his head and brought it down hard and fast on Marty. 


	2. Connie & Doug Find a Body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doug's on the lookout for troublesome teens with Connie by his side, but rather than litter and tasteless graffiti he stumbles across something much more sinister...

With all of Connie's schoolwork piling up, it wasn't very often that she got to spend time with her father. Except for this one evening where he had managed to convince her that spending time with her old man like 'the good old days' whilst he was on shift was the best thing to do. 

Doug Maheswaran had been tasked with patrolling one of the roads leading out of Beach City and informing the local authorities if there was any tomfoolery happening within the area. Recently, there had been a lot of dangerous driving and teenage mishaps and if Doug could catch the license plates of any of the suspects then he would have completed the job successfully. That and breaking up their little parties that they felt the need to have. 

Admittedly, it wasn't his usual job and he liked to explore via foot rather than patrolling in his car. Working in a tourist town could mean any kind of job could come his way whenever. 

It was dark and Doug loved the idea of having Connie with him. It would have hopefully meant that his trusty sidekick was up for the task of entertaining him throughout the night. It would also give them both the evening to catch up and bond. It had been a while since he had spent time with her, especially with work and school sweeping them both away. 

"Nothing suspicious just yet." Doug commented as the car crept along the road, it was certainly a lot later than Connie usually stayed up - but this was a different circumstance. Doug had been pretty convincing, despite her wanting to continue her studies. She couldn't be in front of textbooks all day every day! She needed some fun, even Doug knew that. 

Connie stared out of the window into the darkness. There wasn't much about, but something caught her attention a little too quickly. 

"What's that? Are they tracks?" Connie pointed out the tracks that indicated a car had been off the road recently. Doug could barely see them, but his daughter had a keen eye for this kind of thing. 

"Oh yeah, I think you're right! How weird...I didn't think that would lead to anything." Doug pressed his foot against the brake slowly as the car came to a stop just past the tracks. 

"What if that's where all the teens have gone to be delinquent? What if there's  _ underage drinking _ and  _ littering _ ?" Connie smirked, pushing her father for some kind of adventure. If she had skipped out on studying for this, she was going to have to make sure it was interesting at the very least. 

"Well…" Doug bit his lip and rinsed his hands against the steering wheel. "You know I don't usually get out of the car."

"Dad, you might be able to bust them! You know I'll be your back up!" Connie nudged her father in the shoulder. He couldn't help but smile. 

"Well, okay - but we have to stick together and we'll have to take our shoes off before we go back into the house. It's muddy out and you know how your mom gets about the carpet." Doug nodded before turning the car's engine off and reaching into the back for his flashlight. 

"Right." Connie nodded, in clear agreement. She wouldn't want to upset her mother. 

The duo clambered out of the car as Doug switched on the flashlight. It was time for both of them to have explored the tracks that had been made in the dirt below them. Doug didn’t want to admit that he was a little scared about entering the darkness. Neither of them was quite sure how far the tracks went into the greenery. It could have gone on for miles. 

Doug didn’t want to disappoint Connie. Once again, he wanted to make sure that Connie thought he was as cool as possible. He was pretty cool, but was he  _ walk down a very dark and scary muddy path to tell off some teenagers _ cool? 

Maybe. He was going to try. 

The two of them followed the tracks in the dark, thankfully unlike the night before it wasn't hammering down with rain. Despite the tracks being muddy, it wasn't as if they weren't able to walk on the surface. 

Connie stepped between the tracks, not wanting to damage any evidence that they may have against the delinquent teenagers doing nothing more than being delinquent. Connie was happy she wasn't like them and chose to lead a more reasonably academic life. When not faced with textbooks she was faced with fighting monsters, so that was really cool. Cooler than misbehaving teenagers. 

It felt as if they had been walking a long way when the tracks stopped. Doug pointed his flashlight out in front of them both as Connie squinted, trying to see if there was any suspicious activity in the area. Nothing...except…

"Hey, Dad? What's that?" Connie pointed to something glistening on the surface of the soil, curiosity causing them both to step closer towards whatever it was that was on the surface. 

Doug pointed the torch towards the ground as they got a better look at what was in front of them - until they wished that they hadn't. Right in front of them was a decaying hand sticking out of the ground with a few shiny gold rings on their fingers. Connie had seen some horrifying things before, but most of that was related to gems. This was a  _ human _ ! 

"Let me just-" Doug inspected the hand a little closer, not quite clocking onto what it was until…"It looks like...a human hand!?!" Doug yelped as he hopped backwards in shock. 

Connie, although disgusted, was also intrigued. She had been on missions with horrible things on them before, although none of them would have compared to finding a human hand. A human hand that she could only assume was attached to a human body. 

Connie covered her mouth as Doug's breathing increased. He pointed the flashlight at the hand once more, wanting to be brave in front of his daughter, but at the same time being entirely disgusted by it all. 

"Connie, you should probably go and wait in the car." Doug instructed. 

"What are you going to do?" 

Doug paused for a second before pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. 

" _ Absolutely nothing _ . Now, let's get out of here. I heard your mom's making meatloaf!" Doug chuckled nervously as he spun on his heel, ready to depart. 

"We've already had dinner." 

"Tomorrow. Meatloaf tomorrow! Wouldn't want to miss that, bright and early!" Doug swung his arms as he twisted. 

"Dad! Wait! What if that's a person down there? Shouldn't we do something?" Connie stepped in front of her father and held out her hands, refusing to let him leave. 

"I'm tasked with protecting the people of Beach City from loitering teens - solving  _ whatever this is _ will be completely above my pay grade!" Doug pointed back at the hand, not wanting to turn back around and witness it again. 

"We can't just leave!" 

"What if they think we were the ones who did it?" Doug turned to Connie with a stern expression. It was a genuine worry that he suddenly had. One that he couldn't shake. This was going to make or break Doug Maheswaran. 

Connie thought for a moment. Weirdly, there was a possibility that he was correct. She wished that he wasn't. This was going to make her life a whole lot harder as if she didn't already have to put up with all of the things that Steven had put her through with the Gems. 

His suggestion was a little silly - but Connie didn't want to defy her father. This might have been something that she may have been able to report anonymously in her own time. Although, she didn't want to get her dad in trouble for never speaking up about what they had found. They probably should have been the better people and spoken up about what seemed to have been a crime. 

A very big crime for that matter.

"I don't think that's how crime works, Dad." Connie furrowed her eyebrows at the thought. 

"You don't understand crime until you're on the flip side. This...this is a lot. We'll be in big trouble and if the trouble is big enough - they might make the story into an original series on a streaming platform. We need to get out of here." Doug didn't want to be in the area too long. He had watched too many true crime documentaries to know that this wasn't how things played out for the people who got caught. They needed to go. 

"Streaming platform original material and huge money-making media corporations exploiting the lives of victims of crime aside, is this...the right thing to do?" Connie gripped onto her hands, thinking about all of the thoughts running through her mind.

Doug pressed his hand on his hip and used the flashlight to illuminate a section of the area around them. He glanced down at his daughter, trying not to look anywhere near the hand that they had noticed. They should have just covered it back up, that way nobody would ever have to know that it was there. 

Regardless, it may have just been a hand. Doug didn't know whether that thought was better or worse than the scenario that he currently had in his head. As far as he was concerned there was a person buried underground. Dead. 

Well, he hoped they were dead. Weird stuff happened in Beach City all the time - but he certainly wasn't ready for the zombie apocalypse. 

"You can never make a bad decision in life, Connie."

"What? Yes you can." Connie grew defensive at the comment.

"Well, yes, but that's not what I mean. Sometimes in life, the decisions you make are just a result of what you feel at that moment. If you think a decision is right through those circumstances, then so be it. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, Connie. Sometimes, things just  _ are _ and we have to learn to accept them. This is one of those times where we walk away and pretend that nothing happened because that would be the responsible thing to do. I think. Maybe..." Doug gently held onto her shoulder as a way of assuring her that the situation was going to have been fine no matter what the circumstances were. Doug had it handled. Sort of. 

"I don't think-"

"Oh, would you look at the time! Our evening walk where we saw  _ absolutely nothing _ was lovely, wasn't it?" Doug grinned, gripping a little tighter into Connie's shoulder. 

"But Dad-"

" _ Wasn't it lovely _ ?" Doug's eye twitched. 

Connie turned away for a moment before looking back up at her father with a nod. 

"It was great." She assured, making sure he knew that she wasn't going to tell a soul about their adventures. 

There was no way that she was going to have been able to keep what they had done a secret. Sure, she was going to have tried as hard as she possibly could for her father - but there was something morally incorrect about what they had done and what they were currently doing. 

The best thing for everyone would have been for them to have called the authorities and seen what would happen now that they were in a position where they could have gotten away with it. 

It wasn’t as if they had been the ones to kill whoever was buried inside of the ground below them. The thought irked Connie - would who have done something so disgusting? Was there a murderer in Beach City? Who did the hand belong to? Did she know who they were?

Her mind quickly scanned across all of the people that she knew. Her first thought was Pearl, but she could never be too sure. There were so many places a gem would have been able to hide a body. Only an idiot would have decided that they weren’t going to warp the body to another planet and dumped it there to be free from their crimes. 

At least, that’s what Connie would have done if she was a gem and in the position where that was something she had to do. She had to admit that she hadn’t thought too hard on the idea of what it would have been like to bury a body. Well...not much, anyway. 

Doug gently ushered Connie away from the area, leaving the hand sticking out of the ground. A responsible parent would have gotten their child away from a corpse - that made a whole lot of sense. Doug had done the right thing, he was sure of it. 

Sure, calling the police could have been an option - but that didn’t mean it was something that he wanted to do. That would have been a whole lot of paperwork and he certainly didn’t want to have to deal with that so late at night. It was an evening he could have spent doing his job or spending the rest of the evening with his family. 

Connie clambered back into the car and clicked on her seatbelt. She looked over at the tracks that were leading into the darkness, hopefully, her footprints wouldn’t have been embedded into the mud as a way to track back to them. 

Doug cleared his throat as he started the car, he didn't want to dwell on what they had seen for too long. The best thing that he could have done would have been to continue their patrol for the night on their search for teens doing bad things. 

Perhaps it wasn't the teens that they needed to watch out for. 

"Dad, are you okay? I really don't think we should just  _ leave _ this. It feels...wrong." Connie gritted her teeth together, feeling a little nervous that her dad wasn't in a position where he felt willing to do what she believed was right. 

Could she ever go against him? 

"Just...don't tell your mom." Doug sighed, readjusting his glasses as he gripped onto the steering wheel. 

Connie stared ahead, realising that there wouldn't have been any way of her getting through to her father. 

If Connie wanted to do the right thing - she was going to have to do it herself. 


	3. Steven & Connie Are Now Both Accessories to a Murder so They Should Probably do Something About it Before it's Too Late.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steven and Connie are in a lot of trouble. Well, that's if they don't do anything about the problem they've come across.

Steven had spent the last couple of days thinking about what had happened the other night. It was something that had forced him to stay awake every single night that week, staring at his ceiling and debating what life was and what it meant. Why was there life? Why was there death? 

Why had Steven been cursed and blessed with the ability to heal? A simple way of him being able to bring people back. 

He wasn’t quite sure how well that would have worked if he had left Marty under the ground for a couple of days being chewed on by worms. Would it have been wrong to turn him pink then? Marty didn’t deserve to be pink, Steven wouldn’t want that relation back to him. It wouldn’t have looked good on future resumes. 

At least Lars was cool and was doing something with his life. That was good. 

If Marty was ever immortal, then he totally would have found something evil to do with all of his time. Steven was doing the world a favour by not healing him. Truly. 

Although, today was the first day since the incident that he was going to get to see his best friend, Connie Maheswaran. It was going to have been hard to see Connie when the only thing that had been on his mind for the past couple of days was the image of his father bonking Marty on the head with a shovel. 

The noise rang out in his mind. He had the power to help and yet chose not to. The idea of defying his father’s decision wasn’t one that he wanted to get into. He had asked his dad to help and it would have been wrong to go back on that now. 

The last thing Steven wanted was for Greg to have disliked the way that he had handled the situation. Steven didn’t help  _ that much _ . At least when Steven thought that he had tried to kill him that had been an accident, this was most certainly not the same.

Whatever had come over his father that evening was one of sheer hatred for the man that had plagued his life for a while. Greg had that mile-long stare on him in the past when talking about Marty. It wasn’t the first time that he had expressed his hatred. Out of everyone that they could have killed...Steven felt guilty knowing that he didn’t entirely feel sorry for someone who had upset his father so much. He wasn’t a very good person. 

Steven strolled along the beach beside Connie. They hadn’t quite arranged to have done anything that day. Connie was usually the one to organise things for them to do together to try and fit around her work schedule. This was different. She seemed to have a little bit of free time. That wasn’t something that usually happened. 

Little did Steven know that Connie was also...distracted. 

By the same thing. 

"I haven't heard from you these last couple of days, is everything okay?" Connie questioned as she held her own hands, a little bit nervous to query what he had been up to. Even if Conne was stuck studying, she still tried her hardest to contact Steven as much as possible. 

Steven's heart began to race at the question. Was she getting suspicious? 

"I haven't heard from you either." Steven pushed his hands into his jacket pockets as he walked, she didn't need to press any further. He hoped that he didn't sound as defensive as he felt.

"Things have been busy...with school." Connie lied. She hadn't been able to concentrate on any of her school work the same as she used to. She was terrified of getting behind in school, but these were certainly strange circumstances, to say the least. 

"Things are always busy with school." Steven chewed his bottom lip, not wanting to admit how much he had missed Connie. At least she would have known what to do if she had been in the car when he had hit Marty - she probably would have thought of a sensible option. One that prevented him from being in this mess. 

"Yeah...but that's just school." Connie sighed, wishing that she could spend more time with her best friend. She wanted to tell him. It would have been the right thing to do. Perhaps the Gems could help them with the situation they were in and then they wouldn't have to think about it ever again? 

She needed to consult Pearl on the matter. She was certain she had experience on the subject. 

Steven felt terrible, insecure and frightened about what was going to happen to him. What was going to happen to his dad? He was sure his dad had been arrested for something before, but it wasn't  _ murder _ . This time was different. He had to protect him no matter what.

Connie was slightly different in the sense that the anxiety of not being able to tell anyone began to eat away at her. It was a horrible feeling and she was certain that she was ready to share. If there was one person that she would have been able to trust - it was Steven. 

She stopped dead in her tracks as the ocean lapped somewhat peacefully against the shoreline beside them. Steven turned and allowed her to take his hands, not quite understanding what was going on. His best friend wanted to tell him something and by the sombre look in her eyes - he was certain it was bad. 

"Is everything okay?" Steven questioned with a slight cock of his eyebrow. He hated it when she looked this sad. 

Nothing was okay. Connie had witnessed something that she didn't want to see over the last couple of days and there was nothing that she could do about it to erase that from her memories. At the very least she would have been able to share the burden with no other than Steven Universe. Although, it had quickly crossed her mind whether or not that was fair to share. 

“Can I talk to you about something?” 

“Anything.” Steven nodded, knowing that he was somewhat lying through his teeth. There were a few things that he didn’t want to talk about, like dead bodies or how he hadn’t caught up on his favourite television show yet. He was avoiding spoilers. 

Connie didn't know how to admit the fact that she had been caught up in something that she wasn’t too sure of. Something that she was scared of being a part of. Something that terrified her. 

“I went out with my dad the other night and we found something really strange just outside of town.” Connie gently placed her palm against her forehead, worried about what Steven may have said about their discovery. “I haven’t been able to sleep properly. It’s been playing on my mind.” 

“What is it?” Steven grew a little concerned about Connie’s expression. She looked incredibly panicked. 

“We stumbled across someone’s...body. Someone dead.” Connie took a deep breath, the idea of it making her stomach churn. She had been the one to aid her father in making the choice, despite her trying her hardest to sway his opinion on the matter. It was never going to work out the way that she wanted it to. 

Steven’s heart dropped at the sound of her voice. This was not what he had expected. 

“Oh…” Steven didn’t know what to say, his mouth dropping slightly ajar. 

“It was horrible, Steven. I only saw a hand, but I never thought it would be like that.” Connie shook her head, on the verge of breaking down at the idea of what she had seen that night. 

Steven stared at her in silence as she looked away, feeling his eyes burning into her. There was so much that he wanted to question her on but didn’t quite know how to say it. What was he going to have to do if Connie knew about it? He trusted Connie - but enough to keep a secret this big? 

“I have to report it to the local authorities, but I didn’t want to get my dad in trouble.” Connie was a little afraid to admit how terrified she was of hurting her father. The last thing she wanted was for him to have lost everything over something that wasn’t his fault.

The same thing was running through Steven’s mind. 

“You can’t!” Steven suddenly blurted out, instantly gripping onto Connie’s arms. 

“What? Why not?” Connie’s expression dropped, a little shocked that Steven would have gripped his hands around her that way. His hold was tight around her arms. 

“Because...because...uh...we’re hanging out! Yeah! It can wait, silly! Authorities,  _ priorities _ \- hah!” Steven grinned, trying his hardest to get her to stop the pursuit of going after the criminal that rid the Earth of that awful man. 

“Steven...this is much more important than hanging out. What if my dad gets in trouble?!” Connie didn’t like the way that Steven was speaking to her, the way that he found it was fine to say the things he was saying without consequence. She heard every word and wasn’t ready to stand for it. 

Steven was going to have burst with guilt. It had been building up inside of him for days now. There was no way that he was going to have been able to hold it in. 

“What about  _ my  _ dad?!?” Steven’s bottom lip trembled at the thought, a bead of sweat trickling down the side of his face from his hairline as he continued to grip onto Connie. He didn’t mean to say the words so suddenly and yet there they were. There was no way he was going to have been able to go back on them now. 

Connie slowly lifted her arm, placing her palm on top of his hand to try and get him to get off her in as subtle of a way as possible. She blinked rapidly at him, completely concerned by what he was telling her. Why would Greg have been in the same amount of trouble as her dad? It didn’t make sense…

“What about your dad?” 

Steven’s eyes-widened, realising that he had revealed something that he perhaps shouldn’t have done. It didn’t help that everything that he had said had been out of sheer desperation for survival - same with the things that he had done. The things that were completely morally questionable. 

“He-, you can’t-...Connie, please!” Steven gripped a little tighter out of fear. 

“Steven? Are you okay? Do you know about this? About the body?” Connie tried to take a step back but was instantly caught out by Steven’s grip around her arms. There was nowhere she could go. 

“It was an accident! We didn’t mean to!” Tears began to flow down either side of his face. 

“Steven! What are you talking about?” 

“You can’t tell anybody, Connie! My dad’s going to get in loads of trouble if anyone finds out!” Steven shook her gently, Connie stood still as she connected the dots within her mind. 

“Did your dad  _ hurt _ that person?” Connie’s expression dropped dramatically. 

Steven pulled Connie in for a one-sided hug as he began to sob into the crook of her neck. Nothing was going to have made any of this better, even Connie. Although, he sure as hell was going to have tried. 

“We didn’t mean to! It was an accident.” Steven cried, his fingers scratching at the back of Connie’s t-shirt. He was desperate to be close so that he didn’t have to think about much other than Connie, although, that was currently impossible. 

Connie pulled him away from her, holding onto his shoulders so that she could get a better look at his face. There was no way that she could believe what she was thinking without his confirmation. 

“You were involved? Did you hurt that person?”

“It was an accident!” 

“Why didn’t you heal them?” Connie couldn’t believe what Steven was saying. There was no way that someone was hurt around Steven that he didn’t bother to heal. That would have been morally incorrect and way worse than her dad not reporting the body. 

“I-I-...he was a bad person! He was really mean to my dad and I didn’t want him to be mean again! He’s a horrible person, Connie. He didn’t deserve to... _ live _ . Especially not forever.” Steven shook slightly at the words. He hated having to say them, but he wanted Connie to understand. 

Connie thought about the information that she had been given. This was huge. 

“I have to tell someone, Steven!” Connie groaned, her moral compass telling her it was something that she had to do. There was no way that she wasn’t going to have been able to. 

“Connie, you can’t!” 

“I have to!” 

“No! You can’t! You really can’t!” Steven panicked, realising that there was only one way that he could silence Connie…

One way that he could make all of this go away. One way that he could stop her from talking…

NEVER! He would never think of doing such a thing. He could never get Connie to go away like that...that would have been wrong. Morally incorrect! He could do it right here, right now - without a shovel.

He could never bribe Connie with money. 

Never. No. 

She would never take it. 

“If anyone finds it my dad is going to get in trouble too!  _ We’re _ going to get in trouble!” Connie began to panic, the last thing she wanted was for either of them to end up in jail. That would have been a disaster. They wouldn’t have been able to visit one another if that was the case! 

Suddenly, Steven was struck with an idea. 

“Well...why don’t we hide the body somewhere else? Somewhere that only we know? Somewhere nobody will ever go again?” Steven’s eyebrows raised at the thought of his plan. It was much easier said than done, but it certainly could be done. There was nothing to say that it couldn’t. 

Connie thought for a moment. At least if that was the case there was no way that her or her dad would have gotten into trouble. Not only that, but Greg and Steven would have also been in the clear. It was the best way to go about it. 

“Somewhere else...yeah...we’d have to move the body.” Connie thought about it for a moment, feeling a little guilty that she was thinking about committing a crime with her best friend. 

It would have protected them all and she certainly trusted Steven’s judgement of character. If Steven had mentioned that this person inside of the ground wasn’t nice then she was going to have believed him. That was just the way it was. There was nothing more to it. 

Connie was going to help him commit the crimes that he so desperately needed to do. It was the only way out of trouble. 

“Do you have any ideas?” Steven sniffed, taking a step backwards away from his friend as they attempted to think of an idea of where to put the body. 

It had to be somewhere that nobody would find. Somewhere that nobody would ever want to go again. 

“We could always try and get the body on a warp pad. We could go anywhere! Just...somewhere we know that nobody would ever want to go again…” Connie tapped her finger against her chin, trying to come up with a solution to their problem. 

Steven thought for a moment. 

“Well...there is one place that I don’t think anyone would ever go again…”

* * *

Spinel had decided that despite all of the trauma that she faced when inside of the Garden that it was time to pay it a visit. She had spent far too long there to not go and say hello to all of the plants that she had spent all of her time around. They would have thought she didn’t care if she didn’t make any kind of effort…

She decided that it would be best to warp over and check to see how everyone was doing back in the Garden. It was important to her. 

A small squeak sounded around the Garden as she stepped off the warp pad, wishing that perhaps she shouldn’t have gone there. Sudden regret about her decision hit as soon as she saw what looked to be a human laying face down near some of the brush.

“Let me get a looksie, here!” Spinel waddled over to the brush before poking the body anxiously with her finger. Squeak. Squeak. 

Nothing. It didn’t seem as if the human wanted to hang out. Why wouldn’t they want to play? Spinel was just so much  _ fun _ !

“Heyo, friendo! You look a little sleepy down there! Don’t you need to eat? How are those plants treating you, Busta? Pretty good, huh?” Spinel giggled as she held onto the body’s legs and dragged them out of the brushes onto the cold concrete below. 

Spinel stared down at the body and tapped her finger against her chin. Squeak. 

What was wrong with this human? Why were they not moving? 

“Come on, sleepyhead!” Spinel giggled as she pushed the body onto its back. 

There he was - the decaying body of Greg Universe’s old touring manager, Marty. 

Spinel’s eyes widened at the sight of the body slowly rotting away. She blinked a few times, her mind computing what possibly could have happened and why this sleeping man was suddenly inside of Pink’s Garden. It didn’t make any sense. 

Spinel pressed the palms of her hands together and took a deep breath as she raised them to her lips. She pushed both of her hands out in front of her with a sigh. 

“Well, shit...” 


End file.
